5/28 9Sunday)
Left LA at 730 and got to king city by noon
Tried to get into local campground with no luck
Got to park by 1230
Very slow line to get into park and another line to drive to parking lot
Got in and was recommended a 4 mile hike
Hiked J.. canyon to high peaks to tunnel trail and it was really pretty and so many flowers and green. Interesting trail in some parts with foothold cut out of rock
Then got back to the parking lot and did the balconies loop. Started on the cliff and came up through the caves. Also incredibly scenic, so green and refreshing. Perfect weather today too, overcast and mid 60s
Finished up by 1715, drive to King city and got a hotel from at motel 6 and then made a reservation for a rv site in the park campground for Monday night
Beautiful hike and views
5/29 (Monday)
Left King City early in the morning grabbing Starbucks and McDonald’s on the drive-in passed almost no cars all the way into the east side of the park. Got into the park and started the trail at 8:15. Another beautiful hike up to the peak this time to North cholane peak. There are a ton of wildflowers beautiful overcast weather in the mid-60s not too many people by the time I got started. There’s only one person on the trail who passed me that was a young guy who was moving pretty good. Took a nice little break up at the fire watch station up at the top of the peak and then made my way back down. On the way up I traveled via Moses spring trail to Bear gulch and then up to North cholane peak on my way back I came down via the rim trail. I’m constantly surprised by the amount of and beauty of wildflowers in this park.
I walked back to the car I went ahead and grabbed some potatoes and banana and a drink and went to the campsites near Bear gulch area had lunch took a nap. I talked to a park ranger who said that the bear gulch caves were closed and so I went ahead and made my way back down to the campsite and started setting up camp about two.
After setting up the camp outside the hike around some of the local trails to the campsite. I first went to the Ben bacon ranch which was a little sad not much there more like a construction zone and staging zone for other stuff but still cool to see. Then I hiked back through the campgrounds and onto the bench trail all the way up to the peaks viewpoint next to the entrance way for the park. Along that path there were many flowers and again beautiful views of the hills and the peaks were out in the distance. There was an interesting site to see almost look like snow on the ground there some sort of seed or flour type of thing when it releases its pollen that cover the ground in this white fuzz that kind of really interesting year one of the creeks.
5/30 (Tuesday)
Got up about 5:45 due to the sounds of nature and sunlight and then proceeded to put in my contacts and have a weird camp breakfast before tearing down camp. Breakfast consisted of some tomatoes some hot dogs and some boiled red potatoes. After getting camp struck drove out to Old Pinnacles parking lot and got ready for the days hike. The goal was to do a loop hike and get back before too late and drive down to LA. The loop that ended up doing consisted of a grouping of trails that include old pinnacles Blue oak trail Condor gulch sycamore trail and bench trail. It was about a 6.8 to 7 mi hike and was absolutely beautiful may not have been a standing of some of the other hikes but again with the amount of beauty this park has had it’s hard to beat it. Again the weather started off overcast was nice and then proceeded to clear up as I got closer to the end of the hike sycamore trail was really beautiful hiking along a stream you would hardly believe you’re in here I ran into a member of the Condor crew. And he was out there at the radio antenna tracking condors around the park. I saw a bunch of large birds couldn’t tell they were all vultures or condors I think I saw a condor out on a tree at one point. Conra goldge also had really nice views of pinnacles along with a blue oak trail and they also had really nice views looking back to the east as well going out of the park. I did scrape up my knee at one point stopping to climb over some rocks to try and get a good photo and that might have been the only blood drawn on this trip. There is again this weird pollen thing leaf spores I don’t know and makes this white carpet it looks super fuzzy it was in two or three spots along the creek bed along the old pinnacles trail. Ran into a couple who ended up being the ones that were next to me at the camp so let me would last night and were telling me that the weather this year has just been fantastic along with the flowers they were here a month earlier last year and I was 10° warmer and not as many flowers and dry this year it’s cooler it’s greener there’s running water and a ton of flour so truly been very lucky with this trip in now my experience with Pinnacles.
On the way out, I stopped by King city at the motel 6 to see if they had my bag of missing lotions and they did! What a pleasant surprise
Link to Photo Gallery from hike
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ogUX13vHiG2TXHkbA
Link to Hikes